Meghan's the J-Mac Daddy

Meghan McCain picks up where her father left off.

Who knows better how to turn around the Republican Party then a 24-year old daughter of a failed presidential nominee who “supports” Barack Obama, bashes her father’s party for its tech gap, interns for “SNL” and Newsweek, and is headlining the upcoming Log Cabin Republican convention?  Probably anyone else, but Meghan Mcain’s going to transform the Grand Old Party whether anyone wants her to or not. 

Dishing the dirt on her father’s campaign and the GOP’s future between tweets on cabbies asking about her cheekbones, Meghan’s politics seem to have combined Paris Hilton’s looks with Lindsey Lohan’s common sense.  And like her father, she seems intent on staying around no matter how many Republicans she ticks off: 

While John McCain has gone back to being the senior senator from Arizona, Meghan — Columbia grad, former “Saturday Night Live” and Newsweek intern — has crashed the Republican Party like a slightly tipsy debutante.

Cable news shows want her. More than18,000 people follow her on Twitter. And now, as The New York Observer reported Thursday, McCain has lined up a six-figure book deal with Hyperion.

While swearing she has no interest in public office, McCain says she hopes to usher in a new era of modernity and moderation for the GOP.

“All I am trying to be is a young, cool Republican woman for other Republican women,” McCain said in an interview with POLITICO.

But is the GOP’s future a smoking hot moderate who revels in her opinion that “there are MANY progressive republicans out there and we scare the [expletive] out of the radical right”?  More likely, the media is simply falling in love with John McCain 2.0. 

There’s little doubt that like father, like daughter, Meghan McCain is good copy.  She’s beautiful and brash; willing to blog about her dating life on the campaign trail while criticizing prominent Republicans from Michael Steele to (indirectly) Sarah Palin.  And Meghan occupies a difficult middle ground for the media and politicians – she’s both political family, which usually means she’s off limits to criticism, and a media ”celebrity” of sorts.  Her opinion both carries political weight and can also be dismissed as meaningless drivel – that line, of course, only being drawn when she’s crossed it.

It’s tempting to view Meghan McCain as little more than a liberal Republican roman candle – a short-lived flare that will burn out within the next election cycle.  But with few other voices vying as representative of the GOP’s next generation, the media will gladly seek out more moderate voices (like Rep. Aaron Schock, who McCain apparently wants to be BFF with) to use as a cudgel against traditional Republicans.  It’s the Gen X version of the role Meghan’s father played with aplomb for the last eight years. 

Whether the 24-year old McCain understands that her celebrity has as much to do with her willingness to hurt her father’s party as it does with having her father’s last name is a question that’s open to debate.

UPDATE:  Meghan makes it clear, she’s pro-life and pro-gay marriage.  That’ll woo the loyal opposition.